Second chances
by Izumi1909
Summary: Five years after Tuuri's plans to go on the Silent World expedition were seemingly sabotaged by Lalli, magic research brings three of the very same expedition's former crew to Keuruu. The true saboteur, who has taken to act through Lalli from time to time, has knowledge that can help them.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

His breakfast, which was dinner for Onni, finally revived Lalli enough for him to remember the question he wanted to ask his cousin:  
-The weird new dream area. Whose is it?  
-The foreign mages who were expected to arrive today.  
-You said "mages". There is only one area.  
-This why they are here. This area should normally be two. Mages from both Iceland and Norway apparently ran out of ideas on how to separate them. It was the side effect of a new rune meant to deal with ghosts, so they came over here to see if any of us could help. Any idea is welcome at this point, so feel free to go give it a look.  
-I'm not interested.  
-Okay. How is your present for Tuuri going?  
Strictly speaking, it wasn't _his_ present. But Lalli had checked the cupboard before leaving, and it had looked almost finished.  
-Good. Should be ready in time.  
Onni spoke again:  
-The woman among the foreign mages came here with her husband and daughter. The two of them only speak Swedish and Norwegian. Tuuri has been the one showing them around. First time I've seen her smile like this in a while. Maybe you can try talking to her again.

It had been five years since the paperwork that would have let them participate in that expedition had ended up in the river. Lalli hadn't even known what it was, except that there had been a couple papers he had needed to sign. He had had no problem taking them to an office he was going to walk by on the way to scouting anyway. But the schemer had known, and made sure that every single sheet ended up in the water. Lalli had been the one who had been yelled at by Tuuri, and hated by her for it ever since. There had been one consolation from the schemer before he had seemingly disappeared from Lalli's life almost as suddenly as he had come into it: at least, Tuuri was alive. Lalli had done his best to be grateful for it despite the situation. Then something that the schemer hadn't seen coming had almost killed Tuuri instead. There had been multiple causes, but Tuuri's mind had caught mostly onto those that wouldn't have happened if she had been able to go on the expedition. It had been Lalli's fault that she hadn't been able to go on the expedition. Her health had fortunately gotten better since, but her grudge towards Lalli hadn't.

And all this for what? For the schemer to only show up around Tuuri's birthday, gather materials during Lalli's scouting shifts, make her a present and deliver it to her with complete disregard for the bad status of their relationship? Meddling with Lalli's life didn't come without a price for the schemer. For every minute he lived Lalli's life, Lalli was entitled to a minute of his. The schemer knew that Lalli could jump in and act unlike him for long enough that even his idiot husband would notice that something strange was going on. If that happened, the situation could reach the ears of someone from whom the situation was best kept hidden. At least, that was what Lalli suspected to be the real reason. The schemer's official reason was that he didn't want Lalli to see too much of who he was giving up on meeting so Tuuri could live. Lalli honestly didn't feel like he had given up on much. Knowingly choosing Tuuri's life over getting to meet that idiot would have been an easy choice for him, if he'd had any say in his actions at the crucial moment. In fact, when Tuuri had tried to do the paperwork again, he had refused to sign anything by his own initiative, which had only worsened her initial contempt towards him.

Lalli's thoughts got interrupted by the sound of two bowls being placed on the table at the same time, then two people taking turns speaking Icelandic, while Onni answered to them in a slightly annoyed voice. Lalli was finished with his meal anyway, so he decided to leave before the newcomers noticed his presence and tried talking to him. He however had to do a double take when he noticed the one who had come to sit next to him. Red hair that long, a male voice. Lalli had seen him one of the times he was collecting some of the "debt" the schemer had towards him. The one who had come to sit next to Onni at the other side of the table was a brown-haired and hazel-eyed woman around his own age. Nobody he remembered, be it from his own life or the schemer's. Once he had checked this, Lalli decided to leave swiftly. Next thing he knew, some idiot bumped into him and two bowls of food shattered on the floor. He quickly heard a child's voice, followed by a woman's:  
-Papa!  
-Emil!


	2. Caged bird

**Chapter 1: Caged bird**

Literally half of the people who had been on the Silent World expedition were here in Keuruu, and Lalli had managed to bump into one of them as he was carrying food for two people. Unfortunately, Tuuri couldn't do more than tell Lalli to watch where he was going without coming across as having anger management issues. She couldn't afford to mess things up with these three. These four, technically, she reminded herself as she checked that little Janine was still within eyesight. None of the three adults would forgive her if anything happened to the four-year-old girl.  
-Don't yell at him, I wasn't paying much attention to where I was going either.  
Emil was already back on his two feet, but covered in food:  
-I'm starving. A change of clothes can wait until after dinner.  
Emil went to sit next to Helena, while little Janine went to sit next to Reynir. Tuuri ended up taking the seat Lalli had just vacated, which had become a frequent occurrence over the last five years.  
-Come to think of it, being covered in food probably doesn't bother you anymore, considering how often it happens, Helena remarked.  
Emil pointed at Janine:  
-Aside from the fact that this one was a quite messy eater as a baby, I'm don't know what you're talking about.  
Helena and Reynir answered by taking turns mentioning what Tuuri guessed to be previous occurrences. The length of the list quickly moved from what Tuuri considered to be normal – though it included Emil's own wedding – to Helena possibly having a point. Emil sighed:  
-Could we talk about something else, _please_?  
Reynir pointed his spoon it the general direction in which Lalli had left and addressed Tuuri:  
-Was this your cousin?  
-Ow!  
The protest came from Emil, who's just gotten Helena's spoon jabbed into the side of his face. Helena and Reynir apologized in unison.

This incident summed up what had been a regular occurrence during the tour of the base Tuuri had given the group. Both Helena and Reynir would frequently move out of the way at the same time, even if only one of them was in the way in the first place, and it caused the other to bump into to something, or even get in someone else's way. They frequently took turns adding to the same story they were telling, finished each other's sentences and sometimes actually spoke in unison. And that was just scratching the surface. Tuuri had gotten an idea of just how impractical, if not downright crippling, the consequences of "the accident" had been for them. At some point, someone had crushed Helena's right hand a little hard while shaking it, and Reynir had winced and grabbed his own right hand. From having shaken it upon greeting them, Tuuri knew there was actually a prosthetic under that glove and sleeve. In addition to this, Reynir and Helena's appearances were as close as what two unrelated people of different genders and professional backgrounds could manage. Helena was a day scout first and a mage second, which meant that despite sporting the same dark blue and light brown pattern as Reynir's robes, even her casual clothes were basically a more comfortable version of the Norwegian scout's uniform; this translated into a much shorter tunic and a generally more form-fitting outfit. While she also had bangs in the front and a braid in the back, Helena's hair was only about half the length of Reynir's. Helena kept claiming that Tuuri should have seen it before "the accident", as five years had not been enough to completely regrow the chunk that had been lost at the same time as his right arm. Tuuri probably would have been able to do so, if Lalli hadn't ruined everything.

By the time she came out of her thoughts, Onni had apparently been carrying the conversation concerning Lalli with Reynir. Her attention to the conversation had come back just in time to notice Onni pointing at her:  
-Reynir, would you mind honestly telling her what it was like to be a non-immune on this expedition at some point? She really had her mind set in participating at the time it was being set up.  
-I wouldn't, but I didn't really have any choice in the matter of participating, so my point of view may not be the best.  
-Don't worry, it's actually the kind of point of view that she could use.  
Had Onni not heard the first half of Reynir's sentence? Tuuri definitely wanted to know more about _that_ :  
-What do you mean by "didn't really have any choice in the matter of participating"?  
-It's an… interesting story, actually. I was working on that merchant ship…

Tuuri watched the sun set behind the buildings, knowing it was actually doing so far outside the walls of Keuruu. She'd needed time to herself after hearing Reynir's story. _A non-immune_ had been able to _stow away_ on that expedition and _come back alive_. Take that, Onni. No, that wasn't going to work. Onni would most certainly point out the lost arm and the fact that his dormant mage powers would have been utterly useless if there hadn't been another mage answering to the same gods as him on the expedition. But none the consequences had included actually getting infected with the Rash, or even wounded by a troll. If Reynir could and their skald had been able to go through the whole mission without neither of those things happening, why not her?  
-Hey.  
She turned her head to see that Reynir had found her. He came to stand next to her.  
-Do you mind if I ask why you wanted to go on that expedition?  
-I haven't been able to leave this base in sixteen years. It had already been eleven at the time.  
-You speak enough languages to be able to work anywhere in the world. In places that are safe.  
-I've always had my mind set on the Silent World. I never saw the interest of going to other safe areas. But even in the case of safe areas, getting a non-immune transferred is too much trouble when an immune person can do the exact same job. The only way I could think of it happening was to meet someone from outside who would like me enough to not mind the extra delays. But I wasn't in a section that had much contact with visitors at the time. Onni was afraid it would just make me want to leave more.  
-But you are our guide right now.  
She knew she would have to tell at least one of them this story sooner or later. She hadn't expected it would be on the day of their arrival:  
-About a year and a half ago, I got really tired of how things were and… broke down, I guess. Something needed to change in my life to get me going again, but it couldn't be something that would make me leave the base. So I was trained for a job that would make me interact with visitors more often. It was a very welcome change, but it still pales compared to actually seeing the world.  
Reynir stayed silent for a few moments before speaking:  
-Iceland used to have a ban on non-immune people travelling internationally. My parents claimed it was still in place so I wouldn't leave home. I only found out it wasn't in place anymore because one of my brothers told me. But even he said that going abroad wasn't that interesting and seemed to think that just going to Reykjavik would be enough of a change for me. This is how I ended up on the merchant ship the first place. But I can tell from experience that Onni's fear that speaking with visitors would make you want to leave more was legitimate. My older siblings would always come back home with these amazing stories, and it really made me want to see things for myself.  
-Wait, how many immune siblings do you have?  
-Four.  
-Out of how many siblings total?  
-Four.  
-And your parents are…  
-Both non-immune.  
-Are you born from a second marriage or something? There is no way your parents had four lucky strikes.  
"Lucky strikes" were the nickname of occurrences in which an immune child happened despite at least one of the parents not being immune.  
-Ever heard of the Dagrenning genetics program?

The unpacking was more of Helena and Janine's stuff than his own, considering how much time he was going to stay before contributing to upholding their end of the bargain. Emil looked at the still-unpacked luggage in one of the room's two single beds:  
-Is Reynir coming back soon? That short walk of his is turning into a long one.  
-He was actually looking for Tuuri. He found her. They're talking. Neither of them seems in the mood to cut the conversation short.  
-It's funny to think she could have been our skald. She looks like she would have been more fun to have around than Sven.  
-A Grade A cat trained to use a typewriter would have been more fun to have around than Sven. But Onni was just telling me earlier that the guy who bumped into you would have been the scout if Tuuri had been the skald. That would have been a shame.  
Emil couldn't resist the impulse to hug her and kiss her cheek.  
-Would have been a shame, indeed.  
-Papa! Story time!  
Janine's bedtime already. It was really late for Reynir to be out. One of the good things Emil had to say about Sven was that he had been surprisingly good at keeping himself safe for someone who had never learned how to fight. Reynir, in many ways, had been the only one of the two non-immunes to really qualify for the "helpless babies" nickname that Sigrun had used for them. Emil still thought of him as if he was Janine's older brother, despite the fact that he was a year older than him, and only a few months younger than Helena. Helena's own protective instincts were more justified, between having taught him everything she knew during the expedition and the accident's consequences. He guessed it was good thing Reynir was already making a friend here, overall. In all honesty, he could use one himself. But there was the composition of their household. The consequences of the accident on Helena and Reynir's relationship. The impression that someone had written "likes both women and men" on his own forehead with some kind of magic ink only other people could see. Between them, these things tended to make a decent percentage of potential friends assume certain things and either avoid them as a result, or on the contrary be very interested in spending time with them until they found out their assumptions were wrong.

Lalli had overall interfered with the schemer's life much less than the schemer had interfered with his. At the beginning of this whole story, he'd been curious about the identity of this person who was so certain that Tuuri would have died on the Silent World expedition. In the process of satisfying that curiosity, Lalli had gotten a general idea of where the schemer tended to be during each part of the day, just a few minutes at a time as to not risk interacting with anyone. He'd considered learning Swedish so he could stay longer and respond to the people around him during these moments, but it would have attracted too much attention, considering he'd never even been interested in learning the much more useful Icelandic before. It was time to put the debt the schemer had towards him to good use. He'd had an as early dinner as possible, and gone straight to bed. He always had a span of a full day and a full night during which he could choose to take the schemer's place. Lalli chose the middle of the night, just as the schemer tended to choose Lalli's usual sleeping hours for anything that didn't require him to leave his room. Lalli woke up in the schemer's bed, slipped out of it, donned the robe that was hanging on a hook on the door and walked into the room that worked as a study, living room, dining room and kitchen. The dining room and kitchen sections were separated by a long counter. He turned the light on. He gave the photos on the mantelpiece and the wall around it a quick look, in case something had changed since last time he had been able to do so. Nothing new. He found something much more interesting on the low table in front of the couch: a newspaper. It was from year 100. Lalli had figured out that the schemer's world had a few years on his, but hadn't really cared about how many exactly until today. Five years, and he could probably tell how many months if he knew their names in Swedish. He found the schemer's desk, which was right next to a small bookshelf filled with notebooks. Fortunately, they were in Finnish, probably so the idiot husband couldn't read them. After checking a few, Lalli found one containing notes that confirmed the thought he's had since Onni had told him about the foreign mages: that the schemer could possibly help the problem they were facing. He opened the desk drawer, took the notepad, scribbled a message on it, tore the piece of paper off, left it folded in half inside the notebook, and left the notebook on the desk. He hoped it would attract the schemer's attention. He heard a voice coming from the bedroom:  
-Lalli? Swedish, Swedish, Swedish.  
The idiot husband had woken up. Let the schemer deal with him. Lalli was soon back in his own dream area.


	3. Best of both worlds

**Chapter 2: Best of both worlds**

Lalli walked toward the dining area, remembering that he wasn't supposed to know Reynir nor Helena. He had checked the dream area mentioned in the message from this world's Lalli before actually waking up, and had been surprised to recognize the presence and landscape that were mixed in with Reynir's. Lalli had met Helena at a get-together in Norway three years after the expedition. She and Reynir had spent the night together at some point, but she had spent breakfast the next morning debating with Emil on what worked best between magic and man-made explosives to burn buildings during cleansing. Lalli had almost completely forgotten about her when he and Emil had gotten a letter several months later, and the nature of the letter had meant needing to commit her existence to memory. He wondered if she was a mother in this world also. There was going to be only one way to find out. He had weaved a colored pattern in the basket that he was about to give Tuuri. If one payed enough attention, they could see it was a repetition of the number 26. In the dining area, he found the gathering that was celebrating the birthday of Tuuri and another resident of the base that shared her birthday, but that their family only ran into by chance the rest of the year. He noticed Reynir and Helena, wearing close-looking outfits and hairstyles. The ones he knew definitely didn't have this going on. Emil's exact words had been "friends with benefits… and a child, in their case". Lalli spotted Tuuri, took a deep breath and walked towards where she was:  
-Janine, this is an adorable little basket! Did you make it yourself?  
-Yes.  
Lalli kept himself from making his presence known in Swedish so Janine would understand him at the last minute, remembering he was not supposed to know the language in this world. Tuuri was standing and leaning towards the little girl, while the little girl was back to Lalli, which caused both of them to ignore the fact that he was coming closer. The little girl was the first to notice he was coming and turn in his direction, while Tuuri had decided to examine every little detail of the small basket:  
-You walk soft like mama.  
Lalli was startled. The hair was the same color, and parts of her face were recognizable if one knew what to look for. Everything else was different, including the eye color, which had been the tip-off to the parentage of his own world's Janine, along with the lack of immunity. Compared to the rest, the fact that the Janine he knew was only a year old in 95 while this one looked at least three was an afterthought. The little girl's words made Tuuri finally notice Lalli's presence and speak to him in Finnish:  
-Oh, hi.  
He wanted this moment to last forever. He wanted to end it as quick as possible. Like the previous times, the body he was borrowing seemed to make the decision for him. He came as close as he dared and gave her the basket:  
-Happy birthday.  
Always an object small enough that their hands would have to make contact when she took it. That would be enough to last him until next year. To remind him that it had been worth it to create that window into what would have happened if she hadn't died. To his surprise, she grabbed his forearm during the transfer:  
-I need to speak with you.  
She dragged him towards one of the buildings surrounding the dining area, whose back was a preferred spot for private moments of all kinds. On the way there, she stopped at a table to drop the baskets. During that moment, Lalli looked for Janine, in case he could catch a glimpse of something that would tell him why she looked so different. One of the adults came to pick her up. Wait, what was Emil doing here? Lalli had frequently wondered what had become of him in this world, but he hadn't expected him to ever visit Keuruu. Lalli got his answer when Helena joined the pair to give them a big hug. Both men and women. Lalli hadn't really given much thought to that before. But with all the unforeseen changes that keeping Tuuri alive in this world had brought, not all of them good, it was reassuring to see Emil leading a happy life, with someone he got along with well in his own world.

One of the upsides of that place being a known spot for private meetings is that someone had made an effort to install a bench there, which gave them a place to sit. It turned out to be needed when Tuuri asked her question:  
-Lalli, did someone ask you to drop the paperwork for the expedition in the river?  
If she had suspected Onni and asked if it was him, he could have said "no". If she had said "someone _else_ " he could still have truthfully given a negative answer. Fortunately, he realized that confusion would be perfectly logical reaction to this world's Lalli to the question, so he went with that:  
-What?  
-Ah, I guess you want an explanation. I was talking with Reynir about how you always showed up with a present at my birthday despite the current state of things between us. He suggested that someone else may have told you to drop the paperwork in the river, and this was why you wouldn't explain, but still gave me presents. I know you can be convinced to do things that you wouldn't do on your own quite easily, and I remember that I made sure our paperwork never ended up in Onni's hands because I was afraid he could do something like that. I asked Onni about it, and he told he didn't ask you to do anything. But there are plenty of other people here, so there may have been someone else than Onni who didn't want me to leave. So, this is why I'm asking you: did someone ask you to do this?  
Lalli thought of his answer. Claiming she had guessed correctly was tempting. But the second Onni would find out, he would turn the world over trying to find who it was, and this world's Lalli would eventually have to admit that it was nobody on the base. That would only worry Onni more and most likely make him jump to the conclusion that this world's Lalli had been under a kade's influence all this time without anyone noticing. He suddenly realized that there was an answer that he could give that was both truthful and had a chance of making things better between Tuuri and this world's Lalli:  
-I thought it was one of your weird jokes, so I didn't realize you were serious about the two of us going to the Silent World for a long time. When I understood, it was too late to say no. I was near the river, with the papers in my hands. I didn't want you to leave. I threw them in. After that, I was hoping you wouldn't be mad at me anymore if I waited long enough. I'm sorry it made you sick.  
Her breakdown had caused many things to visibly change between her twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth birthdays. This world's Onni had still been musing about his part in it during the twenty-fifth one. Lalli had had a guilt trip of his own at the time, and was happy to see she seemed to be doing better.  
-How could you have known? And why didn't you just tell me this earlier?  
-You don't hear things when you're not ready to hear them, and just now was the first time you seemed ready since I dropped the papers in the water.  
Tuuri suddenly seemed very interested in the floor right next to the bench:  
-I see… I still don't like that you did this, though. Though I have to admit that the whole thing did make Onni realize how stubborn he was being about some things. He may still prefer to have me here than anywhere else by a long shot, but at least, he stopped being so controlling on other matters. And it was about time, if you ask me. Look at this, I'm ten years older than _he_ was when everyone thought it was perfectly fine to have him care for both of us.  
She suddenly was looking at him again, with somewhat of a smile on her face:  
-You haven't properly met my charges yet, have you? They are going to be based here for a while, so you might as well know who is who.  
She dragged him back into the party. He needed time to himself after this conversation and seeing this world's Emil, so he let this world's Lalli take control of his body back.

Lalli didn't know what the schemer had been up to, but he had, for some reason, come back right before getting introduced to the foreign mages, the woman's idiot husband and their daughter. Tuuri had probably told them that he didn't like unnecessary touching that much, as nobody tried to shake his hand. A bell ring reminded him that he had come to the party on the way to his shift, and that it was going to start soon, prompting him to leave. His stomach told him a few moments too late that whatever the schemer had been doing, it hadn't been eating. It was spring, he would probably be able to scavenge something during his shift.  
-Lalli!  
It was his name, but not the voice of anyone he interacted with regularly. He turned around to see the idiot husband running towards him. What did he want? Once he got close enough, he gave him three of something that looked edible, saying something in Swedish. Lalli put two in his belt pouch, but was so hungry he decided to eat one before going on his shift. What were these? They tasted great. He realized too late that the idiot husband was still there, and smiling. However, the second he noticed Lalli was looking at him, he ruffled his hair, said something that Lalli guessed to be a farewell and left in the same direction he came.

One the way back from his shift, Lalli walked by the harbor, where the boat was just leaving, bringing all the cleansers it could carry to this year's cleansing site on the Keuruu-Pori waterway. He noticed a few familiar figures, including Tuuri, waving at the boat. He went to ask her what she was doing here:  
-Oh, hi. Emil's helping out with the cleansing operation, we're all telling him goodbye.  
Lalli looked at the boat, and saw the blonde figure waving at his wife and daughter. It looked like he wasn't going to have to stand the idiot husband's presence for the next few weeks to months, after all. He remembered that he still had a piece of that food in his belt pouch and showed it to Tuuri:  
-Is that some kind of Swedish food? It tastes good.  
-Technically, they aren't just a Swedish thing. But you need something that is very hard to find here to make them. There is enough of it in Sweden that it's somewhat affordable on its own. They are called cookies, by the way. But don't keep them for too long either, or they get less crunchy.  
Lalli now had an idea of how the other world's idiot husband had gotten the schemer to move to Sweden. But it couldn't be only the cookies, could it? He had tried to ask the schemer why he had married this guy in one of their secret written messages to each other, but he hadn't answered due to his "not letting him know too much of what he was missing" policy. The female foreign mage came to speak to Tuuri, holding her yawning daughter's hand with her own right one. Wait, where had the lower part of her left arm gone? He was quite sure she had two arms at Tuuri's birthday. The female foreign mage must have noticed Lalli was looking at it, as she got closer to him, and started playfully making her loose lower sleeve twirl quite close to his face. He was completely mesmerized, like when he watched one of the windmills for too long. Had Tuuri told her about this, or had the woman guessed that weakness of Lalli's on her own? Fortunately, she quickly got bored of it, and stopped. Only then did he notice that Tuuri had been speaking to him:  
-… and they make quite good fake arms in Sweden. She was wearing hers yesterday evening.  
Fortunately, this seemed to be the end of what she was telling him. When he looked for the woman again, she was walking away with her daughter.  
-When did she lose it?  
-During the magic accident, when Reynir lost his. Weren't you listening to what I was saying just now?  
-Sleepy.  
Thinking to actually tell her when he was sleepy, in hope she realized she didn't have his full attention in these moments, rather than just saying "okay" to whatever she said had been a piece of the schemer's advice. According to him, giving her the impression that he was listening to her when he was in fact half asleep had been a big factor in keeping him from realizing what Tuuri was preparing them for until it had been too late. They had talked nowhere near enough for her to notice these past five years. However, it had worked well with some of the other people with whom he had been using the "saying okay each time he got a word in" method before, which made it one of the few tangible good changes the schemer had brought to his life.


	4. What could have been

**Chapter 3: What could have been**

-I'm going to the capital tomorrow! I'm going to the capital tomorrow!  
-Tuuri, I think the entire Known World and a few countries in Silent Europe know you're going, by now.  
Fortunately, Helena seemed genuinely amused rather than annoyed. Maybe the mother of a four-year-old had more tolerance for this level of enthusiasm. Reynir, meanwhile, seemed strangely silent to Onni. He usually had a quip to add to Helena's, but always seemed uninspired when the quip was directed to Tuuri. Between their own research and anonymous messages in Icelandic sent to them, Helena and Reynir had come to the conclusion that they needed to look into sources of information that weren't available in Keuruu, meaning that they would have to do some of their research in Saimaa. Helena wanted to take the opportunity to show her daughter the town, and was going to need someone both to translate any source of information that was in Finnish and watch Janine when both she and Reynir would be busy. Since Reynir's presence would cause the typical delays for groups including non-immunes anyway, absolutely nothing prevented them from bringing Tuuri along. Onni got the feeling that the pair had come to like Tuuri enough that if her authorization to go to the capital had been refused, Helena and Reynir would have actually taken upon themselves to find the exact reason, and asked for an explanation to whoever they considered responsible. The capital was the one travel destination that Onni couldn't protest, as it had been the only prospect Tuuri had had when they were living in the lake system's more remote islands, where there were very few circumstances under which non-immunes could leave.

Onni turned his attention to Lalli:  
-So, did you see or sense anything strange last night?  
-No.  
When the anonymous messages had come, Helena and Reynir had always found them as if they had been slipped under the door of their guest quarters during the night. Each of these messages was a tip of sorts for their research, and helpful more often than not. They had quickly come to the conclusion that one of the base's mages had knowledge on the subject that they didn't want others to know they had, but cared enough about Helena and Reynir's predicament to want to help them. Of the near one hundred of mages on the base, Onni and Lalli were among the ones considered the least suspect, as they were both related to the person acting as their guide and translator, meaning that they had access to a much more discrete means of getting any information to them. In addition to his, Lalli didn't know any Icelandic. Lalli had hence been considered the best person to pull off night scouting duty to guard Helena and Reynir's door. But the messages had kept coming, and one of Onni's fellow full-time mages had spelled out the thought that he had been avoiding:  
-Maybe someone should be watching Lalli as well.  
So Onni had taken to keeping an eye on Lalli. On Tuuri's twenty-fourth birthday, the presence had been too fleeting for him to be sure he wasn't misreading things. On Tuuri's twenty-fifth birthday, he'd had other things on his mind that had made him forget to look out for it. But on the most recent one, he had been certain that there was something off with Lalli's presence when he had shown up at the party, then talked with Tuuri in the spot that was secret in name only. It had been gone by the time Tuuri had introduced him to her charges. But he had felt it again the previous evening, for the third time since he had started watching Lalli the previous week. Helena and Reynir had gotten a new tip this very morning. From what Onni could tell, it was someone who was very good at masquerading their presence as Lalli's, to the point that mages much more powerful than himself, but not as close to Lalli as he was, hadn't noticed anything different from usual. If he had the choice between asking Lalli about this presence while Tuuri was on the base and asking Lalli while Tuuri was at least two days of travel away, Onni was going to go with the latter. In the meantime, it was best to avoid letting this presence know that he knew.

Right after Onni got inside Lalli's dream area, the shield provided by the other mages that had volunteered to assist him made it impossible to leave. He made sure Lalli didn't move from his circular raft himself, before joining him on it:  
-Lalli, I'm only going to ask you this once: who was controlling your body when you gave Tuuri her present? What do they want?  
-He means no harm. But it's better for everyone if I'm the only one who knows who he is.  
Lalli probably thought such an assertion would be enough to be left alone, but it did nothing to reassure Onni. On the contrary, it sounded like something that someone else could have asked him to say if he was interrogated.  
-Next question, then. How does "he" gain control of your body?  
Lalli looked at the center of his raft. Onni thought he was trying not to answer, when he noticed a small whirlpool in the center of the patch of water surrounded by the raft. He put his hand over it, it got big enough to swallow his physical form if he wanted to jump inside. Lalli finally spoke:  
-You won't believe me if I explain who he is. The passage works both ways. It's the price he's paying to be able to do it. If you want to try, come out at night-time and try not waking his husband up.  
This only worried Onni even more. What Lalli had just said suggested that this other mage was ashamed enough of whatever he was doing that he was not telling his own husband about it. He jumped into the whirlpool, and was given the choice to "emerge" anywhere in what he guessed to be the following twenty-four hours. He decided to do so at the earliest point in time he was being offered, which he guessed to be near the beginning of the work day for those on a morning shift.

Next thing he knew, he was sitting at a desk, writing in a notebook. He put down the pen, and looked at the arms he had just moved. They were much thinner than his own and clad in the sleeves of a finely tailored long-sleeved tunic. A mirror, that was what he needed to find. Onni looked around the room. The desk at which he was sitting seemed to be in some living quarters. He counted four doors in the large room. He couldn't see any sign of a mirror in the room itself, and tried to figure out which door would lead to a room with a mirror, before settling for trying them all himself. Just as he was getting up from the chair, he saw the knob turn on the door in the windowless wall to his left. The door opened, a man clad in a Swedish officer's uniform stormed in, dropped a newspaper on a low table that already had three of them on it, grabbed a briefcase that was leaning against the couch next to which the low table was, turned in his direction, said a few words in Swedish, blew him a kiss with his free hand, and stormed out. The kiss had made the man stop moving just long enough for Onni to notice that he looked a lot like Emil, aside from maybe being a little older. He remembered the newspaper that had been dropped, and realized it wouldn't hurt to look at it. He couldn't understand the words. Between this and the uniform, he decided to assume he was in Sweden until he knew more. A good place for a mage to hide in plain sight, to be sure. Out of sheer curiosity, he decided to look at the date. He should be able to guess that, at least. He was grateful to have been standing near the couch when he saw the number where the year was supposed to be. It couldn't be right. He got just enough of his wits back to look at the other newspapers on the table, only to see they all had a date in Year 100 as well.  
-What the…  
He sat in a daze for a few moments, before remembering that he was still looking for a mirror. The second door he checked turned out to be a bathroom, containing just what he wanted. Lalli's face stared right back at him. This time, he actually let himself swear. The first thing his mind picked up from the sight was the reason it had been so hard to be sure that presence was different from Lalli's. It wasn't someone extremely good at masquerading their presence as Lalli's, it _was_ Lalli. He next realized that the man in the military uniform could very well actually be Emil. So, he was Lalli five years in the future who was living in Sweden with Emil, apparently as a couple… no, that still made absolutely no sense. Lying down on that couch seemed like a good idea.

Whatever time he had taken to think about it later, it still didn't make sense. He needed to find out more. He looked at the desk at which he had been sitting upon his "arrival", and at what was on it. Nothing was obviously relevant. He noticed the small bookshelf full of notebooks, and wondered if any of them would contain something interesting. He noticed three actual, hard-cover books on the lowest shelf. He chose one of them, and looked at the cover. "Ghosts of Silent Denmark by Onni and Lalli Hotakainen". The title was in Icelandic. This meant that either an original in Finnish had caught the attention of the right people, or that there had been enough interest on the part of the Icelanders that it was worth the effort of writing it in their language. Seeing Lalli's name as that as a book's author almost mystified Onni more than seeing his own name associated with anything that had to do with the Silent World. He remembered Helena and Reynir telling him about how they had run into a dangerous type of ghost that was unknown of in the Known World, and that they had needed to find a way to get rid of a really large group of them for the crew to be able to leave the Silent World without bringing them along. The accident had happened in part because they had had to come up with a completely new rune for that purpose as a mage just out of school and her student respectively. Helena had even said that she thought it was too bad that no Finnish mage had been able to get a good look at them, as they would probably have figured out a better way of dealing with them. While the very fact that Onni was holding this book raised way too many questions, at least it was part of the answer as to where those tips to Helena and Reynir were coming from. He decided to open the book, only to find out things _could_ become stranger than they already were. The first page claimed it had been printed in 94. According to this, he and Lalli should have already written this book. That was it. He needed to go back to ask the Lalli he knew what, exactly, was going on. He wasn't sure how he was supposed to do that, but he guessed it involved going to the dream world. He decided it would be best to lie down on the couch to try doing it. As he walked towards the couch, he noticed that there were some photos on the mantelpiece and the wall around it. How had he missed them earlier? He noticed one of the ones on the mantelpiece had a broken frame, and recognized it a few moments later. What was it doing here? It belonged to… Before he knew it, he was pulling the two other books out of the small bookcase. He didn't know what he was looking for exactly. Only that it wasn't in the first few pages of the first book he opened. He opened the other one, whose first page couldn't be clearer. "In memory of Tuuri Hotakainen, beloved cousin". The book seemed to consist of a lot of photos, each printed big on one page, with a description on the one next to it. As he turned the pages, he saw pictures of various overgrown man-made structures and interiors, many very obviously from the Old World. There were also a few pictures of natural-looking landscapes. All signs of human life, if any, were dried-out skeletons. After a while, the photos started showing living people. Onni recognized a short-haired Tuuri, Lalli, Emil and Reynir one some of them. Aside from them, the only people to ever appear were a tall woman and a large man, who both looked about a decade older than everyone else. With the exception of Reynir, all of them seemed to be wearing some kind of uniform. There were a few glimpses of a large vehicle with treads and its interior as well. Just as Onni was starting to understand what the photos were, he turned a page to find the picture of a huge hole in a wooden floor, which looked like something had come into the room from under it. That one attracted his attention enough for him to read the text accompanying it. It told of a bad troll attack, during which Tuuri and Reynir had been secured inside the tank while the immune members of the crew were fighting them off. That one of the trolls had managed to get under the tank, then broken into it through the floor. That troll had bitten Tuuri, but Lalli had gotten inside and shot it dead before it had the opportunity to do so to Reynir. The last sentence of the description left no ambiguity on whether the bite had been infected or not, nor on how Tuuri had dealt with the situation. Onni collapsed before he could even consider looking at more of the book.


	5. Wishful dream

**Chapter 4: Wishful dream**

Onni should have listened to him. He had found out the truth of the schemer's world, and the trauma had caused him to lose his luonto. Until it came back, they could only communicate by dreamspace. Onni had told those worried about the base's security that the schemer didn't have hostile intentions with words _they_ would hopefully listen to, and the whole story to those who absolutely needed to know everything. Those who really needed to know everything were given the liberty to find the story to tell those who only needed to know most of the story, provided they shared it with Onni and Lalli, so they knew what to have Helena tell Tuuri. Helena herself had been told the true story due to needing to be assured that she wasn't leading Reynir and herself into some elaborate trap. Decisions on what to do about Lalli's liberty of movement were still pending. In the meantime, he had to be at Onni's bedside if he didn't need to be anywhere else. The morning after the day Onni had chosen to investigate, a boat had come in with many wounded from the waterway cleansing site. They had run out of beds in the section of the base's hospital that handled that kind of situation. This had resulted in one of the temporarily paralyzed wounded getting put in the room that was usually reserved for comatose patients despite the fact that he would be awake as soon as the painkillers wore off. Lalli didn't know where to direct his disbelief: to the fact that it was _him_ , to the fact that the bed next to Onni's had happened to be empty when the nurses had been looking for a place to put him, or the mess his hair had been left in. The idiot husband looked just plain _wrong_ with messy hair. It was frustrating enough that everyone's worry about the schemer's intentions had already done more damage in a day than the schemer had in five years, and that he had no idea how to convince people to just leave him be. The idiot husband's messy hair, at least, he could do something about.

The idiot husband woke up a little after Lalli did, but he seemed to be whimpering. Lalli first thought of asking the night nurse who was already in the room to give him new pain killers, but a gut feeling told him that he should get the night nurse who was watching over the bulk of the wounded Swedes in the room. After exchanging a few words, and checking something under the covers, the nurse ran out and came back with a couple of other people who took the idiot husband away. Lalli decided to wait for them to bring him back, but the day returned before the idiot husband did, and he eventually fell asleep. The female foreign mage was in his dream area. What was she doing here? The measures taken to keep him inside his area meant that she shouldn't be able to get in. He was about to ask her to leave when she came closer and hugged him with the arm that was still there, and started crying. What in the world…  
-Thank you!  
Lalli wrestled himself out of her grip:  
-Don't do that! What are you talking about?  
The woman took a couple steps away, but didn't leave. Instead, she stared at him wide-eyed:  
-You don't know?  
-I don't know about what?  
-The medics missed a small internal wound while they were treating Emil. If you hadn't insisted that a nurse who knows Swedish come speak to him, he could have bled to death without anyone noticing.  
Saving a life by his mere presence, years after a mistake of his had caused four deaths. The fact that the idiot husband's wife was still in front of him kept him from drifting into that train of thought too much. He also remembered that he was a little bit curious about these two, and this was an opportunity to find out more:  
-Why are you crying? Both of you are fighters. You and your idiot husband should expect each other to die at any time.  
-I know that. I'm crying because it would have been a really stupid way to die and Reynir is a stupidly sensitive… did you just call him an idiot?  
She stopped crying, put her hand on her hip, and made herself look as tall as she could while scowling at him:  
-You listen to me, kid. Other world or not, only a few select people are allowed to call Emil an idiot around me, and you are not one of them. If you want that right, you'll have to earn it. Got it?  
-You're not that much older than me. And how will you know when I'm calling him an idiot in the real world when you come back?  
-I'll ask Tuuri what all the words in Finnish for "idiot" and be on the lookout for them.  
-She's going to want to know why you want to know this. How are you going to explain without telling her the real story?  
The female foreign mage abandoned her superior look and sighed:  
-If I can't convince Reynir she only needs to know the cover-up version before they get out of quarantine, she'll find out the whole thing soon anyway. The second I was told that Tuuri was to get the cover-up version, Reynir immediately declared that there was no way he was going to lie to her. I tried to convince him it was for the best, but each time he starts coming around to the idea, he gets that gut feeling that is kind of like a big, shouting "No". It takes a lot of effort to keep each other's feelings separate, and that gut feeling is starting to get to me too. If I push too hard, I'll end up wanting Tuuri to know the truth just as bad as he does.  
-Don't you foreigners have that thing where you just tell non-mages it's nothing they should worry about and get left alone?  
-We do, but this is the first time it has warranted actually disguising the truth for both of us. On top of this, I think just being friends with her is not enough for Reynir anymore, and he doesn't want to try taking things to the next level while knowingly hiding something from her.  
-The next level of what?  
The woman's eyes grew wide, then she smiled for some reason.  
-If you don't know what I'm talking about, I'm definitely not going to tell you more. Actually, I should probably leave, now. Keep an eye on Emil for me, will you?  
-Why? Aren't you going to come back to be with him? You're reading books right now, they will still be there when you come back.  
-One of the consequences of this situation is that I can never be very far from Reynir. Besides, as you just said, we're fighters. We don't expect each other to be at our bedside each time we end up wounded. Most of the time, it means risking many more wounded. Besides, the faster we get things started back in Saimaa, the faster we'll be finished and back in Keuruu for winter.  
-But why me? The other him is married to the other me. Aren't you afraid that whatever usually makes people want to marry is going to happen?  
-The circumstances will be different. As much as I love him now, I know the kind of attention I would have given him if I had met him under any other circumstances than as a crewmate for this expedition. I really wasn't surprised to find out he was married to someone else than me in that other world in which I wasn't on the expedition. I was only surprised to find out he was married _with you_. Consider I'm doing it half because he could use a friend, half to get an idea of how the two of you could have gotten along in the other world. I'll be coming tomorrow for news.

-Come on Onni, Tuuri is twenty-six! I also quite clearly remember that one of the things you promised when she got better was to not get in the way of her love life.  
Thin arms, resting on the top of thin knees.  
-I only had people who actually work here in mind when I said that.  
He recognized the outfit he was wearing, he realized. But it hadn't been one he had worn himself.  
- _Maybe_ you should re-adjust this now that dealing with visitors is part of her job.  
His mind caught up to the fact that he had heard a voice a lot like Cecilia's say the words "Tuuri is twenty-six", right after his own name. Onni spoke the first words that came to his mind:  
-What in the world…  
A hand grabbed his forearm, made him get up from the wooden floor on which he was sitting, and dragged him along. He realized that he was coming down the stairs of one of Keuruu's protective spell casting platforms and that the person dragging him along was wearing a full-time mage's cape much like his own… and his haircut. He heard the voice resembling Cecilia's again:  
-Onni, where are you going? We need to cast again in half an hour!  
Onni turned his head in the voice's direction to see that it was, indeed, Cecilia's. The person dragging him by the forearm answered:  
-That thing I need to look out for. Someone will come to replace me in time.  
-Oh, did mister mystery mage show up? Can I speak with him?  
-No.

The other Onni took him near the river, which let him confirm what he had started suspecting on their way there: he was in the body of this place's Lalli. The other Onni spoke:  
-I thought you might show up. We are in 95 here. Tuuri is still alive. How is your Lalli doing?  
The second and third statements took time to stomach, but made sense in regards to what he had heard and seen so far. The question, he could answer.  
-He lost his luonto for no apparent reason. Emil got worried and called me.  
-He can speak Finnish?  
-Not really. But after ten years, he can cobble together "I think some weird magic stuff is going on, come quick". Looks like he was spot-on. Can you please explain what this place is? And why did you ask after Lalli?  
-I did exactly what you are doing right now a few days ago. It took me some time to find out that Tuuri had died on the Silent World expedition in your world. I think I collapsed after that. I've been wondering what that had meant for your Lalli. As for this place…  
The other Onni explained the paperwork dropped in the river five years previously, the birthdays and the foreign mages with a unique problem that Lalli – his Lalli – had tried to help with, leading to him getting discovered by the other Onni. An idea crossed his mind:  
-Tuuri's… birthday. How long ago was it?  
The other Onni's answer solved a years-old mystery. Those first five years had been hard. Especially around Tuuri's birthday and the anniversary of her death. But from one year to the next, Lalli had suddenly gotten better, but had, according to Emil, started acting strange during a part of the year that had been consistent, but nowhere near any tragic anniversary he knew of. Onni now knew it had been Tuuri's birthdays in this other world. The other Onni spoke again:  
-I'm sorry to ask you this, but can you please not come back after you leave? I've had enough trouble convincing the higher ups that your Lalli isn't a security threat, and the last thing this situation needs is other people than him showing up.  
He'd actually think about whether it was a good idea or not and have a proper discussion with Lalli about what he had done when he left this place. He knew what he wanted to do before leaving:  
-Can I see her?  
-She's in new arrival's quarantine in the capital right now. You'll have to settle for photos. They're in my room.

Onni had thought of many things while waiting for his luonto to come back. That had included the possibility of the other world's Onni showing up, and what he should be told and shown if he ever came. Showing him that he was in Lalli's body, and explaining him the major differences between this world and his, along with advice to not come back, had been logical things to do. Onni's biggest hesitation had been whether to show him _those_ photos or not. He had finally decided to show them and to explain what had happened, at the very least as proof this world was just as subject to reality as the other, and wasn't simply the other Lalli's wishful dream. The other Onni spoke after giving the photos a quick look:  
-You're assuming I still think keeping her inside the base and not letting her leave under any circumstances was a good idea, aren't you? I'm a father now, and only one of the kids is immune. I can't make the same mistake again, so I already asked all the questions I could think of to everyone I could think of. Your perspective isn't one I was expecting to get this morning, though.  
This was even stranger than Onni had expected. One of the statements caught his attention more than the others:  
-A father?  
-Didn't you say it was 95 earlier? Tuu…  
The other Onni looked around him, at the photos again, and picked up the one from Tuuri's twenty-sixth birthday, which included Onni and Tuuri's charges in addition to Tuuri herself. He stared at it for a moment, before putting it down:  
- _This_ is why Lalli never stays here long and doesn't come often. How do you leave?  
-I didn't get the opportunity to try, but my best bet was the way I came. Feel free to use the bed.  
As soon as Onni had said this, the other one went to lie on the bed. Onni heard a whisper that sounded suspiciously like "Cecilia likes you too." before the other one fell asleep.


	6. New beginnings

**Chapter 5: New beginnings**

Tuuri's first reflex upon hearing this story had been anger. Anger at Reynir for participating in Onni's fearmongering about the Silent World. Anger at Onni for making his fearmongering even more ridiculous than it already was in addition to making Reynir part of it. Such a scenario would have made sense, if it weren't for Helena's reaction after hearing about it. She had called Reynir an idiot, and claimed Onni had _not_ wanted Tuuri to hear the story that Reynir had just told her. After that, there were only two possibilities: either Onni's latest attempt at fearmongering about the Silent World was needlessly elaborate, or Reynir had been telling the truth. As a result, she had spent the entire night awake, running the story, the options regarding its veracity and Lalli's behavior over the last five years in her mind. She realized the story must have been true when she remembered that something about Lalli's birthday presents had changed five years ago. For her twenty-second birthday, he had given her a wood sculpture of two swans, one right behind the other. 22. For her twenty-third birthday, a braided mat alternating two darker rows and three lighter rows. 23. Spring had come early on the year of her twenty-fourth birthday, and Lalli had been able to make her a small wreath of dried flowers. Because of the way they had been arranged, she could guess their exact number from remembering what it looked like. 24. For her twenty-fifth birthday, a hair decoration made out of feathers, that she had found nice enough to start wearing on special occasions, including her latest birthday. Two long feathers and five short ones. 25. The strange pattern in the basket she had gotten on her latest birthday. 26. All birthdays that she wouldn't have been able to celebrate if she had died on the Silent World expedition. By the time the sun came up, she had wrapped her mind around the situation enough to realize that Lalli had been basically letting her be mad at him for saving her life for years, for reasons she could only start to understand. She decided that she'd find a way to make it up to him before she returned to Keuruu. The effort she had been able to make to speak to him like she used to within hours of finding out why he had dropped their expedition paperwork in the river didn't feel like enough anymore. With this more or less settled, she remembered the reason Reynir had given her for telling her the true story despite the fact that just about everyone else had wanted her to get the cover-up version. She was going to need some actual sleep before she dealt with _that_.

On the first day, Emil had honestly thought that the nurse was playing a prank on him. By the second day, he had realized it wasn't a prank and wondered what strange Finnish alcohol had made Helena think this was a good idea. Emil understood asking one of the mages who were actually in Keuruu to keep an eye on him while she was is Saimaa, especially when a happenstance case of this had saved his life. But why Tuuri's weird cousin? Even her brother would have been a better choice than him. It was true that he and Helena wouldn't have met if it weren't for Lalli's still unexplained act of dropping his and Tuuri's expedition paperwork in the river. It was also true that Emil had noticed Lalli had left Tuuri's birthday party without eating anything and remembered that the cookies that he and Helena had made were the first Tuuri and Onni had ever eaten. With this in mind, bringing three of them to Lalli before he actually started work had seemed the right thing to do, and he had seemed to like the one he had eaten. Emil had left for the cleansing site the next day. Onni had just happened to be in the same room as him, with Lalli at his bedside, when he had come back among the wounded. The only explanation he could find was that Helena thought they would make good friends, which was quite a stretch of imagination, even for her. Even for _drunk_ her. The strangest part of it all was that Emil was actually starting to miss Lalli when he was absent, despite their inability to talk to each other. The fact he was still unable to move on his own didn't leave them with much to do once Lalli had rearranged his hair. Emil had taken to speak whatever thoughts were going through his mind when Lalli was at his bedside, as he was afraid to get strange looks if he started talking alone to pass time. But the few times his thoughts had taken an expectedly dark turn or accidentally brought a bad memory back, Lalli had noticed it, gotten off his chair and given him a few shoulder pats. Emil always felt a little better afterwards.

It had taken time for Reynir to notice that the feelings he had for Tuuri had grown into something more than friendship. They had become impossible to mistake it for anything else once he had noticed it was much easier for him to keep his thoughts his own and not be influenced by Helena's when he was around Tuuri. Reynir had already been an observer of the phenomenon, at times when he had fallen asleep before both Helena and Emil. It had a concrete effect on the dream area he shared with Helena: instead of the mess that looked like the Norwegian mountains and the Icelandic pastures had been cut into dozens of pieces and re-assembled by some blind god, a solid third of the landscape would very clearly become Norwegian mountains again. The dream area would come back to what was normal to them the second Helena would fall asleep, which meant that she had never been able to observe it herself. They had given up on trying to reproduce it on Reynir's side, as they had at some point gotten convinced the feelings that would enable it could only happen with someone met before the accident. This had actually been a factor in Helena's swift marriage to Emil: the fear that any new man she met wouldn't be falling in love with the real her, but some sort of mix of her and Reynir. This had come to the addition to the fact that they loved each other and got along well, a quirk of Helena's that no man besides Emil would have been able to stand for very long, and the consequences of their means of killing time on the boat trip back from the expedition.

Helena emerged from her trance:  
-This is very interesting, indeed. It would definitely be worth trying to make it happen with both of us at the same time and have a third person give a look once we get back to Keuruu to see to which extent they remain linked. Thanks for helping, Tuuri.  
Tuuri had accepted to lie by Reynir's side on the bed, as long as it wasn't taken as an answer as to whether she wanted to start going on actual dates or not, either way. This had resulted in both of them electing to apply the first rule of survival outside safe areas while Helena made her verifications. Tuuri sat cross-legged on the bed:  
-So, what were you thinking about?  
-The first time I noticed Helena's area partly put itself back together when she and Emil got time to themselves. You?  
-The same thing I've been thinking of the past few days.  
Reynir knew she was still sorting her thoughts about the other world out. He couldn't blame her, and at times had seen why others had wanted him to keep quiet about it. He probably would have, if it hadn't been for that recurring gut feeling each time he considered doing anything other than telling her the truth. Still, knowing that the path their world would have followed on its own had been diverted to keep her alive for longer than she otherwise would have been probably made her ask herself questions that wouldn't come to anyone else's mind, including her own family's.  
-To be more precise, I've been thinking of what I would have liked better between getting to see the Silent World even if it had meant dying there or getting to come here. I have to admit that it's much more interesting than I thought it would be when I was younger. It got me wondering about the other… us. Do you think there's a chance they spent time together on the expedition?  
Reynir hadn't thought of that, for instance. But they would have indeed met much earlier if she had been on the expedition. Fortunately, he had somewhat of answer to her question:  
-Considering the number of times I ended up with only Sven as company despite the fact that he almost pretended I didn't exist, I'd say yes.  
The second he said those words, he realized that the time between their first meeting in the other world and the other Tuuri's death had actually been shorter that the time he'd known Tuuri. Tuuri herself had probably noticed that detail a while ago. Tuuri didn't say anything for a few moments, then lied back on the bed:  
-I… think I'd like to stay here tonight.  
All four of them were sharing the same hotel room, but Helena and Janine were the only ones sharing a bed at night. It took a few moments for the meaning of Tuuri's words to sink in.

Onni somehow managed to get Icelandic though the mess of tears he had become:  
-I changed my mind! I don't want to go to Sweden anymore!  
Helena answered before Cecilia could:  
-Well, too late. Our boat has already left and we need two Finnish mages for this anyway. Lalli's here only to check things if all four of us get drained by the procedure, not to call his friend to replace you. Come on, where is that Finnish courage I keep hearing about?  
Cecilia moved as to put herself between Onni and Helena:  
-Try having two half-grown children dumped into your lap at sixteen and taking good enough care of them for them to turn out fine. You're a mother, you must have an idea of how much courage is needed for that.  
Helena gave Tuuri and Lalli the look she usually gave them when she was about to tease them:  
-Hum… "fine", you said?  
Lalli pulled Tuuri's sleeve:  
-She's looking at me weird again.  
In all honesty, Tuuri didn't quite get the situation either. Onni and Lalli both held a "the less you know, the better" attitude when it came to what they knew about the other world, but Helena seemed to have gotten a few details that others, including Cecilia, hadn't for some reason. Onni had recently let one of them slip around Tuuri by complete accident: Emil and Lalli were close friends in the others. This, at least, had explained how Helena had seemingly gotten the idea that they could get along out of nowhere. Tuuri looked at the table at which Emil and Janine were playing a game, that was suspiciously far away from the rest of them. She suddenly realized she hadn't answered Lalli yet:  
-Don't worry, Cecilia was saying something nice about you, and Helena was looking at you because she hadn't noticed it before.  
-I don't feel good.  
Oh dear, had Lalli noticed the true sentiment behind Helena's look? Cecilia's voice was the one who jolted her out of her thoughts:  
-Uh, Tuuri, is Lalli prone to motion sickness? Because he's looked at little pale ever since the boat has started moving.  
Tuuri tried to remember some of the few times Lalli had been on a boat or another kind of vehicle, and realized it was the case. She nodded. Cecilia pointed towards the room in the back and spoke in Finnish:  
-It may be good for you to sleep during most of the trip. There are beds over there.  
Lalli briefly looked in the direction Cecilia was pointing, then chose to go the table at which Emil and Janine were sitting. A couple of bags were under it, and Lalli elected to lie down there. Emil briefly looked under the table, put his own feet under his seat to give Lalli more space, made sure Janine's legs didn't risk kicking him and resumed his game with her. Janine lasted about twenty seconds before taking her own look under the table and reaching to poke Lalli's face. Fortunately, Emil stopped her in time. Helena went to join them. Cecilia put a hand on Tuuri's shoulder:  
-You and Onni get extra credit for figuring out how to deal with him, as far as I'm concerned. There is obviously something beyond both your control and his going on with him.  
Cecilia went to sit next to Onni, in the corner he hadn't left since the boat had started moving. She was great, Tuuri really hoped things would work out between her and Onni.  
-Want to play?  
Reynir, who had been silent through the whole affair, showed her a deck of cards. This reminded her of what going to happen if just a few days. If things worked out, Reynir would be back to his "real self" and his personality would be nowhere near as influenced by Helena's as it currently was. While he assured her that he was much more like his "real self" than usual when he was around her, both of them were nervous about the consequences this could have on their relationship. They also both wanted to give it a chance to continue after his and Helena's dream areas would be separated. Neither of them could predict the extent to which this was going to take them into unexplored territory.


	7. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

Tuuri walked down the steps in the house belonging to Emil's uncle and aunt, still half-asleep. The geographical range in which the spell had to be cast for both Icelandic and Finnish magic to work properly included Mora, and there really weren't many places in Sweden that would let a magic ritual happen in them with full awareness of the possible consequences. By the time the expedition had been over, Emil's uncle and aunt had been in no position to claim magic wasn't real. Despite the fact that the house had seemed quite big to Tuuri when they had arrived, it had turned out to be a tight squeeze for all of them, and the two actual beds not already occupied by members of the family had gone to Reynir and Helena, who had given every indication of being the ones who would stay unconscious the longest. Onni and Cecilia had been drained as well, but not to the point of losing their luontos, which had made an early bedtime all they had needed to recover. A quick look in the kitchen told Tuuri that she was probably the first one up. She briefly considered starting to make breakfast, before she realized that the household's usual cook probably wouldn't like this at all. She knew cooking only for oneself or a few people was different from cooking for many more, and whatever breakfast got started would need to feed twelve people, up to fourteen if Reynir and/or Helena woke up while it was being served. She was hungry, though. She realized the usual cook would maybe mind getting woken up early a little less if she immediately offered to help with the preparations. Yes, that sounded like a plan. She crept into the living room, made a beeline for the couch and poked the cheek of the nondescript black-haired figure sleeping in it:  
-Uh… Sven? Sorry, to wake you up, but I'm a little hungry. I'll help you prepare the food if you want.  
The pair of dark brown eyes opened:  
-Go set the table, then. I'll be in the kitchen in a few minutes.

True to himself, Sven was in the kitchen, fully dressed, his hair combed, his glasses on and in the middle of putting his apron on by the time Tuuri had finished setting the table. After that, she helped him with various tasks. They ended up having an early breakfast with just the two of them at the table, for the first time since the arrival of Tuuri and the others. When she ate the porridge that Sven had given her, she realized that it was sweeter than usual:  
-Is there sugar in there?  
-Yes.  
-I thought there wasn't enough sugar to use in the morning porridge.  
-Not enough to put in everyone's porridge every morning. But there is enough for people who think of helping me with preparing breakfast.  
This must have been the longest she had heard Sven talk ever since their arrival. Most of the time, he was "a surprisingly good invisible housekeeper" per Helena's own words. Before the expedition, he was so prone to nitpicking on paperwork that even other skalds got tired of it. According to Helena, he had at some point nitpicked on the wrong thing at an even more wrong time, and the consequences had been bad enough that he had needed get away for a while right around the time Emil's uncle had been recruiting. Helena had told Tuuri this in the middle of a warning to not bring that mistake up under any circumstances, as it made Sven into a complete mess. After the expedition, Sven had become one of the few Swedes believing in magic. While Swedes universally tolerated it from Icelanders, Norwegians and Finns, they tended to not take it well coming from fellow countrymen and Danes. Over the years that had passed since the expedition, he had slowly moved from staying in the old expedition headquarters between jobs and earning his temporary keep by helping around the house to outright living there as the full-time housekeeper, babysitter and homework tutor. Sven spoke again:  
-I wanted to ask you something about Lalli. Is he always that quiet or is it because… uh oh.  
Tuuri had heard the noise coming from right over their heads, where the upstairs hallway was. Sven immediately got up to fill a large pitcher with water, then turned the flame back up under the porridge. Tuuri tried to guess the reason of Sven's reaction:  
-The kids are up?  
Emil's three teenage cousins were closer to a moving storm. The only somewhat good that had come out of them so far had been Anna being the first person to call her fat in years. Tuuri had started losing her appetite a few months before her breakdown, and now that she was better, people were afraid of suggesting that she cut down on food in any way and probably would never do so unless she actually got fat enough to worry the medics. Sven's answer to her question worried her about a much more immediate future:  
-No, worse.  
Steps were heard coming down the stairs and Helena, who had been unconscious for the last two days, entered the kitchen on her own two feet, clad in her sleeping clothes:  
-Morning Tuuri. Morning king of Boringland. Where's the food?  
-Getting warm enough to meet the fire queen's standards. Go sit down.  
-You're in no position to give me orders.  
Swen sighed, grabbed her shoulder, made her walk towards one of the empty chairs and had her sit on it. Helena immediately looked like she was starting to fall back asleep, and put her elbow on the table while using her right hand to support her chin and looked at Tuuri:  
-Reynir's awake also, by the way. Poor little baby is too tired to get out of bed and asked if someone could bring him breakfast.  
By the time Tuuri had finished her bowl, Helena was getting hers. Sven gave Tuuri another smoking bowl on a tray.

Tuuri took the tray upstairs and saw Emil sleepily sitting on his floor mattress next to Helena's empty bed and putting his hand through his hair. She told him good morning, which seemed to do the trick to wake him up completely and make him aware of his surroundings:  
-Where's Helena?  
-Downstairs, having breakfast.  
-Oh dear…  
Emil got up and rushed downstairs, while Tuuri entered the room to find Reynir sitting in his bed and looking very happy to see her, the breakfast or both. She told him good morning, using Swedish due to having just spoken to Emil. Reynir's answer took her aback:  
-Can you please repeat this in Icelandic? I don't understand Swedish as easily anymore. Almost all my Norwegian was coming from Helena.  
Here was the first adjustment to make. He had been able to understand her as long as she didn't speak Finnish before. She told him good morning and asked him how he was feeling in Icelandic.  
-Tired, mostly. Thanks for the food. How about you?  
-Right now, mostly wondering why Sven and Emil seemed so worried about Helena being up. Does she tend to move around when she should be resting?  
Reynir swallowed a mouthful of porridge before answering:  
-I wish it was just that. The _real_ problem is that she can get a little trigger-happy with her back-up defense rune when she's running on adrenaline.  
Reynir was talking about the fact that each Icelandic tradition mage was to have at least one relatively simple rune that they knew how to use tattooed on their body in case they found themselves in a situation where they couldn't use anything else. Reynir had mentioned what Helena used at the time, but it had slipped out of her memory. Tuuri was about to ask him to remind her when it was when she slapped her forehead, realizing that Sven had been referring to it just a few minutes earlier when he had called Helena "the fire queen". Just as she was putting two and two together, Tuuri heard a splash of water, then Sven yelling from downstairs:  
-That's it! You two fire fanatics are camping in the yard until you leave!  
Emil protested:  
-What did _I_ do?  
-You mean besides getting married to her and encouraging her?

The conniption had the side effect of rising everyone else in the household. Absolutely nobody among Emil's family members seemed surprised at Emil and Helena's new arrangements, and Sune even enthusiastically told Sven he'd had a great idea. Emil and Helena, meanwhile, had started a campfire that seemed a little bigger than necessary before pitching their tent. Tuuri realized that Sven may have had other motives than not wanting "his" kitchen to burn down when the new arrangements turned out to not include Janine, which meant that Helena and Emil could make any immediately necessary adjustments to the dream area separation on their own before getting their daughter involved in the situation. This also left Tuuri and Reynir with a room to themselves, at least until Sven decided he wanted to start sleeping in his own bed again. Like the two previous mornings, Lalli managed to come back from his early morning run around the neighborhood right when everyone else had just finished their breakfast, which let him eat his own meal alone, aside from Sven cleaning up everyone else's mess. The house quickly became much calmer as Emil's uncle and aunt left for work, his cousins left for school and Cecilia dragged Onni on a walk around the town in hope of making it a little less scary to him.

Reynir's statement almost came out of the blue:  
-It's really strange. Until we got here, I assumed that I was able to tell you how I feel about you due to Helena's boldness. But now that we're separated, there still seems to be a part of me that doesn't want to wait to take things further. And the more I think of it, the more it seems to feel… scared of not being able to do these things later if we wait for too long, rather than bold.  
-Maybe because you wanted to wait for the dream area situation to fixed before we discussed what we would do after that? I'm a little afraid we'll end not wanting the same things too. How about we talk about it now, so you stop wondering?  
Reynir nodded, and started playing with his braid:  
-Well, Sigrun said that me, Helena and Emil would always be welcome in Dalsnes if we ever stopped needing to move around to fix the dream area situation. I wouldn't mind going back Keuruu, either. Or to Iceland, for that matter. I got at least three different job offers there, if I remember correctly. But what I think I really need right now is a little time away from Helena, Emil and Janine. I like them, but they can get a little… overwhelming. So I'd like to know what they plan to do first and choose among the places I know they won't be. And if I still can't make up my mind, maybe you can choose where we'll go and I'll make the arrangements.  
"You can choose where we'll go". The notion felt strange to Tuuri. She had moved to Keuruu because Onni had decided for her and Lalli. After that, she'd had to wait for eleven years and Emil's uncle to organize the expedition to get a _chance_ to see the Silent World, which the other Lalli had prevented her from taking. Even then, it had been Silent Denmark, despite the fact that Sweden itself and other countries had plenty of Silent territory that wasn't going to be reclaimed anytime soon. She'd gone to the capital because Reynir and Helena had needed to go there. She had come to Mora following others as well. After the opportunity to go to the Silent World had been taken away from her, she hadn't cared where she would go, as long as she got to be part of the trip, and had assumed the destination would always be chosen by someone else. She remembered there had been a "maybe" attached to Reynir's statement, but even that was still more than what she would have considered possible just the day before. She realized that she had been so eager to go on that Silent World expedition in part because for once, the place where someone else wanted her to be had aligned with where she wanted to go. She decided she needed to find out more about the offers that Reynir had gotten, and Reynir was more than happy to tell her about them. At some point in the conversation, the little envy she still had for her other world self for having been able to see the Silent World vanished.


End file.
